THE THE are bringing their Ensouled world tour to Dublin in 2024, the band’s first since their hugely successful The Comeback Special world tour in 2018.
Although Matt Johnson is the founder and only permanent member of THE THE, the group features a large, rolling cast of collaborators. As with the last live shows during The Comeback Special in 2018, this tour will bring together members from different eras of THE THE’s past.
The Comeback Special tour marked the first time the band had played live in 16 years and included a trio of London shows at The Royal Albert Hall, Brixton Academy and The Troxy – all of which sold out in minutes – followed by a world tour encompassing venues in Europe, North America and Australia. The live show at The Royal Albert Hall was also made available as the eponymous The Comeback Special, a multi-format release which included a double live album, art book and a Tim Pope-directed concert film.
The band’s music inhabits a genre of its own: it is music of long shadows, high hopes, channelled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy. It is pop and rock, blues and folk, soul and polemic. It spans alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns.
Having released six studio albums since forming in 1979, THE THE are one of England's most cherished bands. Always unpredictable, recent years have seen Matt and THE THE make diversions into film soundtracks on Hyena, Tony, Muscle and Moonbug; in 2018 a beautiful and moving 84-minute film, The Inertia Variations and biography; and Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE.
